It's about the endless debate manned or unmanned space exploration.
"Endless" meaning "not yet settled".

It's about our individual perception of space; why am I interested in space?
One thing is that space exploration is a field were discoveries are made at a very quick pace! Once a robot is somewhere and starts sending pictures and data, it provides us with more and more knowledge and there are not only robots visiting places but also machines in Earth orbit or even on Earth and even machines owned and handled by amateurs that can show us unknown things.

For the moment, a probe in Mars orbit, 2 on Mars surface, one around Saturn are providing us with a wealth of data, while 2 astronauts are in space, aboard a station we can see (like tonight), and yet, nobody is talking about Gennady and Mike.
When humans went to the Moon, space was occupied by humans only for a few weeks per year and now they're up there all year long, all the time, even after Columbia's fateful loss.
But we love exploration (because of our natural curiosity) rather than exploitation (which is money for someone, not me).
It's true commercialization can make space more affordable but I've never found commercialization or exploitation a very romantic notion.
And I'm after the romance of space...Unfortunately it doesn't look like it's cost effective in the short run.

Could a government do something inspiring without it being hard science or hard technology? (I'm thinking about Triana and seeing the Earth as it is , from very far in space, at the moment I see it on the screen).
Why send humans to Mars at all? Isn't it escapism? Robots are hugely progressing while humans can't shrink and if it's science alone, robots are the answer, not really humans.
Could governements accept sending humans to Mars if it's not just for science? What other argument can the population accept for sending humans to Mars? Why allow only a very few privileged to have the fun of being there while we can only assist from Earth? It looks very elitist...While robotic missions don't give that impression.

And we can always give a personnality to a robot, like Opportunity becoming "Oppy". And cameras are what help us understand what's out there. Cameras are machines and cameras are vital to our sharing the experience, with or without humans in the background.

Certainly, humans in space inspired a lot more than machines, but when they're stuck in LEO while machines explore....

Raoul